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The Continental Carbon Company (CCC) – a leader in the development and manufacture of furnace-grade carbon blacks for the tire and rubber industry – will shut down its Phenix City Carbon Black plant on December 31st following years of failing to make necessary improvements to the facility and being hit by a multimillion dollar judgement verdict. The company was under a federal consent decree to make mandatory improvements to the facility and it is currently operating under a permit from ADEM.

Pyrum Innovations AG ("Pyrum"), a pioneer in the sustainable recycling of end-of-life tyres (ELT) based on its patented pyrolysis technology, has further expanded its cooperation network. In a pilot project with the BMW Group, Pyrum has recently began recycling the used tyres of the BMW Group branch in Saarland. The pilot project was preceded by an audit in which topics such as occupational safety and fire protection, permits and environmental requirements were examined. Pascal Klein, CEO of Pyrum Innovations AG: "We are delighted to welcome the BMW Group as a renowned partner in our cooperation network. Our unique pyrolysis technology is the leading process in the recycling of used tyres."

German end-of-life tire pyrolysis operator Pyrum Innovations AG (Pyrum) has started series delivery of recovered carbon black (rCB) to Ralf Bohle GmbH, manufacturer of German bicycle tire brand Schwalbe. According to Pyrum, the delivery will close the loop “completely” for Schwalbe, which collects end-of-life tires through its recently launched recycling system and supplies them to Pyrum for further processing.

Ralf Bohle GmbH (Schwalbe brand) is the first bicycle tire manufacturer in the world to take responsibility and take back and recycle used bicycle tires - turning used tires into new ones. According to the latest Schwalbe LinkedIn post, a German bicycle dealer Ingo Ruhland collected end-of-life bicycle tires in the basement below his bike store in Freising for 23 years, hoping that the tires could eventually be recycled instead of incinerated. So he waited for more than 20 years until a sustainable solution was found.

South Korean waste treatment and raw material recycling company LD Carbon (CEO Baek, Seong-mun and Hwang, Yong-kyung) announced that it had signed an MOU with Japan’s Sumitomo Rubber Industries, Ltd. for the commercialization of sustainable tire raw materials. Sumitomo Rubber Industries is a global tire manufacturer head quartered in Japan, ranked global No.5 in terms of sales (approximately 7.25 billion USD) LD Carbon and Sumitomo Rubber Industries held a business agreement ceremony at the headquarters of Sumitomo Rubber Industries located in Kobe, Japan on November 18 and promised to cooperate in the commercialization of recovered carbon black and pyrolysis oil.

To harmonise enforcement in each EU Member State and check the current level of compliance regarding obligations imposed on industry by the REACH, CLP and PIC regulations, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) installed a forum which coordinates various enforcement projects. One of the main projects are the REACH-EN-FORCE (REF) projects. The REF-projects are carried out by inspectors based in the national authorities in the participating Member States. The resulting information is collected by ECHA and the Forum Working Group. A final report on the findings of the REF-project is then produced. Ultimately, the goal of the REF-projects is to improve the quality of enforcement in the Member States but also to improve the compliance of registrants with the REACH, CLP, and PIC regulations.

Pyrum Innovations AG (Pyrum), a pioneer in the sustainable recycling of end-of-life tires based on its patented, unique pyrolysis technology, announces the first delivery of recovered carbon black (rCB) to Ralf Bohle GmbH with its Schwalbe brand. The rCB is obtained from used bicycle tires that Schwalbe collects from specialist dealers throughout Germany with its "Schwalbe Recycling System". Subsequently, Pyrum with its pyrolysis plant in Dillingen takes over the mechanical processing as well as the pyrolytic recycling of the used tires. Thus, Schwalbe is now starting production of the first bicycle tire to use rCB completely. The tire is to be presented in June 2023 at the world's largest bicycle trade fair Eurobike in Frankfurt and will then be available in stores.

In a joint appeal, leading tire manufacturers Michelin and Bridgestone believe that there is the potential for an annual total market of up to 1 million tons of recovered carbon black by 2030. The appeal was made last week at the Smithers Recovered Carbon Black Conference in Berlin, which Enviro attended and where the company’s chairman, Alf Blomqvist, was one of the speakers. Both Michelin and Bridgestone have set a goal that by 2050, their tires will consist of 100% sustainable materials. At their appearance in Berlin, both companies stated that the capacity to produce recovered carbon black that meets manufacturer specifications is small compared to the total carbon black market.

Smithers – a global leader in rubber, plastics and polymer testing and market reports – spoke with tires expert Howard Colvin, author of Smithers’ latest report The Future of Carbon Black vs. Silica in Tires to 2027, about the challenges facing the tire industry and expected developments. Howard Colvin has many years of experience in the tire industry with 22 years at Goodyear and 12 years with Cooper. At Cooper he worked in the Advanced Technology group and led Cooper’s consortium of academia, industry and government to develop a guayule concept tire. Howard is the 2021 Melvin Mooney Distinguished Technology award winner for exhibiting exceptional technical competency in rubber science and technology.